BREAKING: Mexican Governor ARRESTED- Here’s What We Know

GUATEMALA CITY – Javier Duarte, who is a fugitive former governor of Mexico’s Veracruz state accused of running a corruption ring to steal from state coffers has been apprehended in Guatemala.

The dude is wanted on suspicion of money laundering and organized crime, and prosecutors directed the Foreign Relations Department to request Duarte’s extradition via its Guatemalan counterpart, Fox News reports.

Mexico’s federal Attorney General’s Office said Duarte was detained with the cooperation of Guatemalan police and the country’s Interpol office in the municipality of Panajachel.

Manuel Noriega, deputy director of Interpol in Guatemala, said Duarte was staying in a hotel with his wife and was arrested without incident.

Duarte was governor of Veracruz from 2010 until he left office Oct. 12, 2016, two months before the scheduled end of his term, saying he was doing so in order to face the allegations against him.

At the time he denied having links to phantom businesses that allegedly won state contracts, and said he had not stolen a single peso of state money or diverted government funds overseas.

“I don’t have foreign accounts,” he said last year. “I don’t have properties anywhere.”

Duarte promptly disappeared and had been sought by Mexican authorities ever since. Earlier this year Interpol issued a notice for his capture.

The Mexican government has found millions of dollars purportedly linked to Duarte, frozen more than 100 bank accounts and also seized property and businesses tied to the former governor. A reward of $730,000 had been offered for his capture.

The detention comes a week after Tomas Yarrington, the former governor of Mexico’s Tamaulipas state, was arrested in Italy, also on allegations of organized crime and money laundering.

Another ex-governor, Cesar Duarte of Chihuahua state, is also wanted on suspicion of corruption and is believed to have fled to El Paso, Texas. He is not related to Javier Duarte.

All three ex-governors were members of the ruling Institutional Revolution Party, or PRI, of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Javier Duarte became a powerful symbol of alleged corruption during mid-term elections last year in which the PRI lost several governorships, including Veracruz, that it had held uninterrupted since its founding in 1929.

Duarte has also been widely criticized for rampant violence in the state as drug cartels war for territory, and for the killings of at least 16 journalists in Veracruz during his six years in office.